I've been reading around the various forums about folks who bought the cheaper WD10EACS for their TivoHD and have had problems - I'm now leaning towards paying the extra $30-$40 for the AV-GP and not having the potential headache...

I've been reading around the various forums about folks who bought the cheaper WD10EACS for their TivoHD and have had problems - I'm now leaning towards paying the extra $30-$40 for the AV-GP and not having the potential headache...

I was able to find the WD AV-GP @ Amazon for $230, but read your post on the Tivo not being able to take advantage of all the features - would it be better than to go with the WD10EACS?

Hmmm...your link is to a list of drives, so not sure which one you're looking at.

The link to this WD 1TB GP drive at Fry's will work as an internal upgrade for a TiVo HD. There's no need to spend the extra money for the WD10EACS as TiVo can't take advantage of the extra DVR features.

I have a Tivo HD. It looks like reading the first post that Tivo is still only supporting 500 gig for the external drive. Would I be able to just plug the Western Digital drive that you mentioned into the Antec and get 500 gig or would I have to follow the instructions in part III - 10? I'm just trying to figure out if I really have to pull things apart to take advantage of the 1TB. As you can probably tell, I hate messing with hardware. I did order the Antec you mentioned, and I now have to figure out what hdd to get.
Thanks

Yes, as Moxie says, if you want to add anything other than the approved WD My DVR Expander via plug and play you'll have to follow the FAQ instructions for either upgrading your internal hard drive (recommended) or adding an eSATA drive (or both).

I've been reading around the various forums about folks who bought the cheaper WD10EACS for their TivoHD and have had problems - I'm now leaning towards paying the extra $30-$40 for the AV-GP and not having the potential headache...

Agree with Greg, AFAIK no one has had any issues using the WD10EACS either as an internal upgrade in the TiVo HD or using it as an expansion drive with the TiVo HD or Series3. Ours has performed flawlessly for about 10 months now.

With regard to TiVo, the only difference between the WD10EACS and the WD10EVCS/AV GP drive is the AAM setting of 128. You can easily use the Hitachi Feature Tool to set the AAM on WD10EACS to 128. TiVo isn't able to take advantage of the rest of the features of the AV GP drive.

Yes, as Moxie says, if you want to add anything other than the approved WD My DVR Expander via plug and play you'll have to follow the FAQ instructions for either upgrading your internal hard drive (recommended) or adding an eSATA drive (or both).

Thanks for your help. It's a bit scary. The Tivo HD has been out for a year now, and Tivo is still only selling the 500GB drive, yet the 750 and 1TB drives have been available for quite some time. I would have thought that Tivo would have offered more options on their site by now. So, the scary part for me is that this must be more complicated then what I'm thinking. I think I'll probably wait a while longer to see if Tivo offers anything more.

Agree with Greg, AFAIK no one has had any issues using the WD10EACS either as an internal upgrade in the TiVo HD or using it as an expansion drive with the TiVo HD or Series3. Ours has performed flawlessly for about 10 months now.

With regard to TiVo, the only difference between the WD10EACS and the WD10EVCS/AV GP drive is the AAM setting of 128. You can easily use the Hitachi Feature Tool to set the AAM on WD10EACS to 128. TiVo isn't able to take advantage of the rest of the features of the AV GP drive.

Looking through the Hitachi Feature tool, a question came to mind. Will this utility support and or detect drives connected via a SATA to USB connection? I plan on cloning the Tivo drive to the 1TB WD drive via a SATA to USB connection...

Looking through the Hitachi Feature tool, a question came to mind. Will this utility support and or detect drives connected via a SATA to USB connection? I plan on cloning the Tivo drive to the 1TB WD drive via a SATA to USB connection...

As I recall, the Hitachi Feature Tool, version 10 (latest) does not detect drive connected to USB and/or Esata port.

I used this utility on both the WD and Hitachi drives in my signature.

Hey, looks like Seagate is coming out with external storage product line targeted at DVR expansion. They're taking pre-orders for 500GB and have 1T coming in the future. Will be interesting to see if it works on Tivo. Price-wise, looks like MSRP is higher compared to what you can get on the street for WD My Expander drive.

Key Features and Benefits
The Seagate Showcase industry leading acoustics provides quiet operation perfect for the bedroom or living room where content is most often enjoyed.
Capacities up to 1 TB add up to 200 hours of high-definition content or 1000 hours of standard definition television to existing systems.
Plug-and-play capability makes setup a snap.
eSATA and USB 2.0 connections packaged in a stylish design provide a seamless fit with other AV equipment in the home.
1-year limited warranty
Free tech support even after warranty expires

As I recall, the Hitachi Feature Tool, version 10 (latest) does not detect drive connected to USB and/or Esata port...

There should be no problem recognizing eSATA port or any kind of SATA port (assuming that it has BIOS support on the motherboard or PCI card it is on) but, yeah, the DOS boot disk that the Hitachi Feature Tool is on does not recognise USB.

Agree with Greg, AFAIK no one has had any issues using the WD10EACS either as an internal upgrade in the TiVo HD or using it as an expansion drive with the TiVo HD or Series3. Ours has performed flawlessly for about 10 months now.

With regard to TiVo, the only difference between the WD10EACS and the WD10EVCS/AV GP drive is the AAM setting of 128. You can easily use the Hitachi Feature Tool to set the AAM on WD10EACS to 128. TiVo isn't able to take advantage of the rest of the features of the AV GP drive.

Hey Rich, I'm confused.....

I've read in this and other posts, that the WD10EACS won't work as an INTERNAL drive in an S3, but the only difference between one that will (the WD10EVCS) and the WD10EACS is the AAM. If I set the AAM to 128, using the Hitachi Feature Tool, will the WD10EACS work as an internal drive on the S3?

I just bought a WD10EACS-00D6B0 at Fry's for $170. Was planning on an external box, but if it will work as an internal.....I'd rather go that way.

Before you buy any Samsung drive, make sure you know how the RMA process works in case you do need it.

No way, read your opinions of the Samsung rma process. It's good wd has com out with their 3 platter.

I'm going to try to jump on your ebay/livesearch/pp deal if I can figure it out. I signed up for live search a week or so ago after MS took over the jellyfish cash back site. I've been looking around for just that kind of deal on a 1TB drive. Especially a 3 platter one.

Hope I can figure it out. Thanks for pointing that out.

edit: Oh well, ebay cash back doesn't seem to be working right now. Maybe layer.

I'm not planning to use the -00D6B0 drive in the TiVo. My S3s have the original -32xxxx version. Since you already have that drive, it's easy to test if it works properly in the S3. Just create a backup and restore it to the new drive. If soft reboot works, then it's fine.

Just bought a WD10EACS-00D6B0 drive. It has 3 platters instead of the original 4 platters. Don't know if it works as S3 internal or not.

Thanks for the data point. Understood that you're not planning on dropping it into one of your TiVo's, but it will be interesting to find out if it does indeed work as an internal upgrade in Series3's and/or TiVo HD's. Volunteers?

Excellent! Now...any Series3 pioneers willing to give the new WD WD10EACS-00D6B0 hard drive a try as an internal upgrade out there? (Install per the normal instructions on the first post of this sticky or WinMFS and try a menu restart to see if it works?) Hmmmm?

Would Western Digital rma a drive that even though it passes all of their diagnostics, it won't operate properly in Tivo?

Just curious, as I've only had to rma one drive, a Seagate, and as I recall(iirc) their diagnostic generated a print out which had to be included with the drive. I imagine that was not really necessary though.

Is Western's process similar? Or is not working in Tivo good enough for them to exchange?

I have a question on adding an external e-sata (non supported hard drive) to a new Tivo series three. I read the through the original post so I hope I am not asking a question that has already been covered. If I add a non supported hard drive will I loose any functionality on recording any HD content or digitally protected content? Correct me if I am wrong but adding an external hard drive is pretty straight forward with a series 3 and won’t require any hacks but the knowledge of which hard drives have been tested per the previous posts and what the right enclosure is. Thanks in advance since I am going back and forth on whether this is the best approach versus a dedicated HTPC from Dell or HP with the addition of an ATI TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner. I am building a dedicated PC anyways for my home theater setup so there will be an extra cost either way.

Replying directly to the four points:
---
Reliability - most retail eSATA products are intended for PCs and not designed for 24/7 operation.
Noise - most retail eSATA products are not tuned for low-noise applications. Many of these products produce noise output that significantly exceeds the TiVo.
Cable compatibility - most retail eSATA products include a eSATA cable with a connector that is not sufficiently long to establish a stable and reliable connection with the TiVo.
Official TiVo support - If you have problems with the "TiVo Verified" Western Digital DVR Expander, then TiVo provides technical support.
---

Reliability/Noise/Cable - thanks Tivo, but that's not your call to make. What I put in my living room, how noisy it is or if it fails every 5 seconds if my business.
Your job is to make sure external drives fail gracefully. THE END. It's not to monitor decibels in my living room. Disk diag devices have been around for a while. Build something in that tests throughput and/or state of the external drive. What capacity you see, that capacity you use. Tivo engineers, that is your job.
Don't make me open my Tivo and perform voodoo rituals to get another external drive to work. Chicken blood is hard to get off of electronics. You focus on writing software, I'll worry about what hardware I buy.

I have a question on adding an external e-sata (non supported hard drive) to a new Tivo series three. <snip>

Welcome to the forum! To answer your questions:

1. Adding an expansion drive will not change any of your TiVo's functionality. It will perform exactly the same as it does today; the only difference being the added recording space. As noted, TiVo does not support anything but the approved WD My DVR Expander (which IMHO is not an issue.)

2. Adding an eSATA drive to a TiVo Series3 is straight forward. Unplug TiVo, connect the eSATA drive, turn the drive on, plug TiVo back in and follow the on-screen instructions.

3. Any of the recommended drives listed on the first post of this sticky thread have been tried by more than a few users and are working fine. Avoid those that are not listed or specifically not recommended.

4. Copy protected recordings (generally) cannot be transferred from TiVo to a PC.

If you want to build your own drive and enclosure the most recommended setup at this time is:

Antec MX-1 enclosure. Fan cooled, quiet, comes with the correct cable and is proven to work

Prior to upgrading the internal drive on our Series 3 we had the MX-1/Seagate combination and it worked flawlessly for about 7 months. Adding an eSATA drive is indeed a very easy way to add more real estate to your TiVo.

[list][*]Antec MX-1 enclosure. Fan cooled, quiet, comes with the correct cable and is proven to work
If you want to use another eSATA cable, the recommended SIIG Serial ATA external cable is less than $10.

Hi, I have never posted here but I have been reading for quite a while. I just recently purchased two series3 Tivos and am going to upgrade the storage. This is where I came up with my question about the Antec enclosure with correct cable. Is there a benefit to using the SIIG cable with this enclosure, or is there no difference using it or the cable included with the Antec enclosure?